New Pixel hardware and Android updates
New Hardware: There is a whole
Pixel ecosystem, with the new Pixel 6a available in July, Pixel 7 available in the fall, a Pixel Watch, also available this fall, new Pixel Buds and an Android tablet that will be available in 2023.
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What’s the big deal? The Pixel 6a, 7 and tablet will be run on Google Tensor, Google’s “custom-designed mobile system on a chip.”
The
Pixel Watch will run on Wear OS and integrate Fitbit’s tools.
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Google is designing for a “
multi-device world” with new Android features that let you copy on one device and paste on another (for example from your phone to your tablet), built in Chromecast on more devices, fast pairing on more devices.
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Explore the world
Google is developing Augmented Reality glasses that d
isplay live translation or live captions, which “makes language visible.” It’s very cool technology, but probably won’t be available any time soon.
Watch the video.
Google Translate added 24 new languages, including several indiginous languages of the Americas. This brings the total to 133 languages available to translate.
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Google Maps is getting a
new immersive view, starting with Los Angeles, London, New York, San Francisco and Tokyo. This will let you explore the city, even if you don’t have the latest greatest mobile device.
Google will be expanding
multisearch so that you will be able to take a photo or screenshot and then add “near me” to the search to get local results. The example used was a photo of a dish, then using that to search for restaurants that serve it, all without even knowing what the dish is called.
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Scene exploration is a tool that will be available in the “future” that will let you pan your camera around to get information on multiple objects. Imagine being in a grocery store, and panning the shelf with wines to see an AR-like overlay of ratings and the ability to highlight items that match selected criteria.
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Everyone’s Skin Tones
Google worked with Harvard Professor Ellis Monk to
develop the Monk Skin Tone Scale. That helps AI to “see” everyone, no matter their skin tone. This is open sourced for the Machine Learning community. You can learn more at
skintone.google .
This is being used to improve
Google Search results. For example if you search for
“bridal makeup”, there is an option to filter by skin tone in the image search results.
This is also used in the new
Google Photos “Real Tone” filters. Those help improve photos with people no matter their skin tone. They will be available in Google Photos on the web, Android and iOS in “the coming weeks”.
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Play with AI
AI Test Kitchen (
aitestkitchen.withgoogle.com) is an app where people will be able to play with various AI demos and give feedback. This is being made available gradually, so you may need to check back on the site to get access.
Google Meet meetings look and sound better
Coolest announced feature:
Live Sharing. This will let meeting participants share controls and interact directly with third party sites like YouTube. Examples include using playlists, managing video playback, playing games and more.
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Portrait Restore uses AI to improve video quality, helping fix issues with low light, low quality webcams or poor connectivity. Meet does the processing “in the cloud” so it works even on lower performance devices.
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Portrait Light simulates “studio-quality lighting”, with the option to adjust the angle and brightness of the (virtual) light source.
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De-reverberation improves audio quality by filtering out echoes. No one will know you are in the meeting alone in a big conference room.
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Automated Transcriptions of Meet meetings will be launched later this year.
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Get more out of Spaces
Google Chat Spaces will be getting automated summaries, so you can get a digest of conversations you missed.
Tools for Web Developers
There were a number of
Google I/O sessions aimed at web developers including using Core Web Vitals and understanding other performance metrics, progress phasing out third-party cookies, and new web platform features.
Smart Home Devices Getting Smarter
Matter is coming to Google Nest devices and Android. This is a new industry standard for interoperability of smart home devices, developed by an
alliance that includes Google, Apple, Amazon, and hundreds of smart device companies. This should mean easier setup of devices, especially if your home has a mix of Google Nest, Amazon Alexa, Apple HomeKit and other devices.
Google also has a
new smart home hub at
home.google.com with links to compatible hardware.
Security and Privacy
Google Messages will be getting end-to-end encryption for group conversations later this year. There will be an open beta.
Sign up to test the Android Messages app.
Learn more.
Google has expanded their policies to allow
Search content removal requests for more types of results with personal information, including your physical address, email address or your phone number. Along with that, they are
rolling out a new tool to make removal requests easier.
My Ad Center will be a new hub for you to control the ads you see on Google. If you have personalized ads enabled, you will be able to let Google know what categories and brand you want to see fewer (or more) ads from. Note that you can do some of this today in a much more limited way at
adssettings.google.com.
Google Docs, Sheets and Slides will be getting new phishing and malware protection later this year. If you open a document with malicious links, you will see an alert and be directed off that page.
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And Google is continuing to auto-enroll accounts into
2-step verification and take other steps to protect accounts from phishing attacks.
Learn more.